One of the keenly anticipated aspects of next week’s budget is a possible announcement by the National Treasury on the future of the social relief of distress (SRD) grant.
Expectations were raised by the statement by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his state of the nation address last week that “the social relief of distress grant is an essential mechanism for alleviating extreme poverty. We will use this grant as a basis for the introduction of a sustainable form of income support for unemployed people.”
Civil society organisations have lobbied hard for the SRD grant to be converted into a permanent, universal basic income grant. The Treasury has always regarded the SRD grant as temporary even though it has been extended each year since it was introduced in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Treasury has stated emphatically in the past that a basic income grant is not on the table and that it rather envisaged integrating the government’s various job creation programmes. Ramaphosa made reference to this in his speech saying existing programmes from job search support to public employment would be strengthened to provide pathways out of poverty.
A signal from the Treasury on the future of the SRD grant is also needed after the recent high court judgment that ruled the grant’s regulations to be invalid and unconstitutional and instructed the Treasury to increase the amount of the grant and the income threshold to qualify for it.
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